New details revealed for Mists of Pandaria and Blizzard's plans for the future

After the opening ceremony, Blizzard held a WoW-only panel to reveal additional details about the Mists of Pandaria WoW expansion coming out. This post was updated as the information was revealed, and holds most of the big news we learned about the expansion.

Blizzard has 4 main goals for this expansion

Give players new things to do, not just new raid bosses. New types of activities.

Get players to leave cities and spend their time out in the world. To do so, they'll be adding a lot of outdoor raid bosses, like old times

More options to progress your character. You can get valor points through daily quests, pvp, raids, etc. But raids will still be faster.

No more cookie cutter builds in talent trees. (We've heard that before, but hopefully they'll have good plans for it

Mists of Pandaria details

It will be a single continent, like Outland and Northrend (not like Cataclysm's content)

That new continent will have an auction house

Alliance and Horde will crashland there during a naval battle, and then both try to take over the land for resources (just like every piece of land they find)

Pandaren will be neutral form 1-10, and then you make a choice

The island is on the back of a giant turtle

Other people on the island:

Jinyu: race of wise fish-men. Can stick staff in the water to hear what's going on around them

Hozu: wise monkey-men who stand on two feet.

Verming: "the new kobold" -- it's a cuter rabbit-type varmints that are tunneling underneath the farm land and stealing vegetables.

Mantid: sentient insect race that've lived on the island, but cut off by a giant wall from the pandas, and have begun to go a bit crazy.

Mogu: the big villains, they used to control the island before the pandas kicked them out. They're back and they're pissed. Looks like orc/ogre hybrid

Sha are demon-dragon looking spirit creatures that manifest anytime bad thigns happen on the island, lore-wise. Will be major

Jade Forest zone:

Alliance and Horde entry zone

Horde teams with Jinyu, alliance with the Hozu

Because we're fighting with each other and with the wildlife, our violence will start to make the Sha appear, which pisses the peaceful Pandaran off.

This is the theme of the first dungeon: outdoor beautiful mountains/valleys has been taken over by the Sha. You have to go in there and cleanse them out to undo the corruption you've caused

The closest look is probably Stranglethorn Vale or ZG.

Valley of the Four Winds:

Zone in two partsnorth side is panda farms, south side is jungle

Players can choose to go one way or the other. Can come back later, but don't have to.

They want the dungeons to "fit in the zone" -- physically see it, give it a presence in the zone. This dungeon is Stormstout Brewery

This zone will have your first interaction with the mantid insect race

The wall of the island borders this zone, and they're beaking through a bit

Playable Pandaran race info:

You start out neutral, and at level 10 you get to pick Horde or Alliance

They can be everyhing but Warlock, Death Knight, Druid, and Paladin. They are the only race so far announced that can be Monks

Racial ability: increased stat benefits from food

Racial ability: Cooking skill increased

Racial ability: Rested experience lasts twice as long

Racial ability: BOUNCY - you take 50% less fall damage

Racial ability: You put a target to sleep for 3 seconds

Mists of Pandaria will have 9 new dungeons

6 of those dungeons will be in Pandaria itself

Many of them will take players indoor and outdoors to keep it interesting

There will be 2 more classic dungeons redesigned as heroic dungeons: Scholomance and Scarlet Monastery

Mogu and the Mantid will be featured in the 3 raids that will be available at launch

The Raid Finder will be available for all raids, meaning that there will be 3 diffculty levels (Raid Finder, normal, and Heroic)